A new set of guidelines released in February by the National Athletic Trainers' Association will help colleges and universities evaluate the sports-medicine coverage currently offered at each institution.

The guidelines were developed by the NATA's Task Force to Establish Appropriate Medical Coverage for Intercollegiate Athletics (AMCIA). Task force Chair Denny Miller of Purdue University said the recommendations serve as a type of self-study for certified athletic trainers, athletics directors and other administrators.

"It's an attempt to give them a way to benchmark their institution's care, and it also has the flexibility to allow them to tailor health-care needs to the uniqueness of their institution," Miller said. "This is an attempt to meet the changes in technology and changes in coaching techniques, to continue to meet the demands of an ever-improving athletics lifestyle for student-athletes."

Dale Rudd of Stanford University devised a point rating system for each sport, based on prior injury tracking. This system was made to be flexible, yet able to determine an adequate athlete-to-health-care personnel ratio at each institution, regardless of size or the number of sports offered.

Rudd used an injury-rate equivalent, catastrophic index and treatments per injury rate to assign points to each sport. Additional factors that could affect the total points include squad size, the health-care staff's travel coverage policies and administrative duties such as teaching responsibilities.

Frank Randall, assistant athletics director at Iowa State University, said the point system makes the issue of appropriate coverage easier to understand.

"Basically, it allows a university to chart the number of sports it has, the injury level of those sports, the potential for life-threatening injury, and then say, 'Are we adequately covering these sports with the personnel that we have?'" Randall said. "With this document, you can apply numbers and statistics rather than talk off the top of your head."

Compilation of data

John Moore, senior associate athletics director at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, favors the guidelines.

"I think that any time you enact or put in place policies and procedures that are beneficial to the student-athlete, then it's positive," Moore said. "I think the guidelines, philosophically, are good. They may need to be tweaked over the next year or 18 months, but basically we're all in the same business: we want to make things as safe as possible for the student-athlete."

The AMCIA task force spent more than two years researching injury statistics before creating the guidelines. Sandy Shultz of the University of Virginia said the process involved an exhaustive data collection.

"We looked at published literature, injury tracking data, position statements, existing guidelines such as the NCAA Sports Medicine Handbook, and we collected as much information as we could to really get a sense of current medical coverage needs and practices," Shultz said.

However, the guidelines were built as a "living document," or one that can be revised to meet changing needs, Miller said.

"We know that as the guidelines are used, they will need to be adjusted," he said. "That is easily accomplished. Another point to remember is that in some cases, we had insufficient injury data. Where data was not available, we based it on professional consensus."

A request for proposals has been issued to accumulate uniform, detailed information about injuries in a number of collegiate sports. As the new injury information becomes available, the guidelines will be revised accordingly, Miller said.

In the meantime, the AMCIA's evaluative tool and guidelines offer collegiate athletics departments a solid starting point to assess coverage, said Lynn Bott of the University of Kansas.

"I look at this as the first document out there for my supervisors and myself to review and say, 'Are we doing the right thing for the student-athlete?' "

Task force members reiterated that the guidelines are not mandates.

"We're not mandating or regulating," Randall said. "We're simply allowing schools to look at their program and say, 'With the sports we offer, are we giving the level of care that we want to give?' "

Rudd said the task force knows that some institutions may not be able to meet the recommendations immediately.

"We don't expect for all schools that fall short of the coverage recommendations to comply immediately," he said. "That's not the point. The point is to look at your school and see where you're at, and then come up with short-, medium- and long-term plans."

Safety is primary goal

Open communication between athletics administrators and the sports medicine staff is key to meeting the AMCIA recommendations, he added.

"I think it's important that the athletic trainers and their administrators meet and talk about this in a manner that's intended to benefit the student-athlete," Rudd said.

NATA President Kent Falb expects some initial uncertainty about the coverage guidelines.

"However, once college administrators fully understand the flexibility that the recommendations offer, they will be able to adapt appropriate, creative ways to meet the guidelines of our task force," Falb said.

Improving care is the sole goal of the task force and the guidelines, he added.

"Because of the ever-increasing number of students participating in intercollegiate athletics, the length of traditional and nontraditional seasons, and in many cases, increased expectations from the athletes, parents and coaches, the NATA believed it was necessary to address the health care currently provided," Falb said.

While some institutions may discover their sports medicine staffs do not have enough qualified personnel to adequately care for the student-athletes, employment was not and is not the intent of the task force, Falb said.

"This was never intended to be an employment issue," he said. "From day one, we were concerned about making sure student-athletes are offered appropriate, adequate care."

Shultz expects varied reactions to the AMCIA recommendations.

"I think reaction will be one of two things: first, it's about time," she said. "Even in the review process, we've had some people saying this is long overdue.

"Others may be concerned about the legal implications or the financial consequence of adding qualified staff," Shultz added. "We want to stress that these guidelines are designed to be flexible and meet all the needs of different institutions. We're trying to get away from what we've been doing to what we should be doing.

"The main key is education. When you really understand the premise behind the document, it's clear the intention is improving the health care of the student athlete."

For more information or to view the complete AMCIA guidelines, see the NATA Web site at www.nata.org.

Valerie Hunt is the marketing communications coordinator for the National Athletic Trainers' Association.